Following stars and other weird stories

A change in scenery

Today is Epiphany and today was Marge’s last day at our church. Marge is our priest, the first woman pastor I have ever had.

One of the gospel readings for Epiphany is about the Magi, the wise people who followed a bright star to give gifts to Jesus. Marge preached on the story of the Magi today, about people following a light on a long adventure without knowing all of the things that would happen along the way. In reminding us of this story, and fitting for the day of her retirement, she shared some of the stops along her own path as a follower of Jesus. She told us about being a little girl and feeling God’s calling within her to become a priest. She was told by church leaders that there was no way that God had called her to do such a thing because God did not let girls be priests. Marge continued to walk with God, to follow the light in her heart and the light of the people in her life who guided her. She served as a hospital chaplain for thirty years before finally, in her 50s, becoming a priest in the Episcopal Church. Today, after ten years at our small chapel in the woods, at age 72, she retired from this stretch of her vocation.

Like the story of the Magi, there are so many details in Marge’s life story that I don’t know! The roads that each of us walk can never be fully told in a few sentences or a short sermon. The parts of these stories that I DO know compel me, stir my heart and activate great longings within me. They make me want to keep going down my own path, to keep my eyes and ears and heart open to the mysterious things that God is doing in my life and in the good, beloved people around me. I like being part of God’s family and I like believing that all of us are part of it.

I am so hesitant to say this part out loud but I have decided to keep following Jesus. I know, it’s a weird thing to say and it’s weird that it’s weird now. For so many years, I thought I had to have some things figured out in order to keep walking with him. I had to be sure about what I believed about that one issue and where I stood on this other one and I needed to know certain things for sure. I still want to clarify and qualify and have some kind of permanent footnote that says “yes, I’m a Christian but not that kind.” But that option isn’t an option. There are still a lot of things I’m not sure about and still I know that light continues to guide me. I know that the story of being created in love and restored in love is one that I am willing to share, to receive, to give. I like having roots and some guardrails, some traditions and stories to pass along to my children even as I know that one of the great truths that I will share with them is the reality that yes, there are so many mysteries in these stories and sometimes the only thing I know for sure is that we are not alone in our grief or confusion or pain.

I know what it is like to feel confused when the stirrings in your heart do not align with what the people in charge are saying to you.

I know how scary it can be to not know what will happen if you step outside of the boundaries of the places you know.

I know how lonely it can be to no longer know where you fit.

I know how awkward it can be to have conversations with people who choose to stay in places that you have left.

I know how it feels to desperately want to cling to a faith that has sustained and buoyed and held you for most of your life and also know that you absolutely without a doubt have to leave the place where you have been.

If you feel those things too, it’s okay. You can just keep walking or you can sit on the curb for a while and rest. I have taken lots of breaks along the way and you can too. No one’s path is going to look like yours.

The path I have taken as a follower of Jesus continues to wind and detour in unexpected ways. There have been points along the way when I thought the road home was a straight shot, flat and smooth and predictable. I thought I could stay at the church of my 20s forever and ever, that I could raise my children there, that we would grow old in that place. If you had told me at that time in my life that I would end up at a tiny Episcopal church with a woman priest serving bread and wine to my outstretched hands and tearstained cheeks, I would have laughed in your face (and cried in the bathroom). And yet the story that unfolds in my life continues to be one of following the light, of listening and trusting the still and small voice within, of trusting the God that apparently, despite all my best efforts, will not let me go.

Last year, on this same Epiphany Sunday, Marge passed around a basket of gold paper stars with the instructions to take one. Each star had a word on it, a word you could use to guide you in the coming year. I love meaningless meaningful things like this and I could not wait to get mine. I reached in the basket, turned over my star and BLANK. No word for me. Marge said that it was because some of the stars had stuck together and to exchange the blank one for another. I tried that but knew in my heart that I was meant to have the blank star. The blankness felt exactly like my communication with God; everyone else seemed to know how to do this faith thing and I, in all my doubts and questions, had made it more difficult than it had to be. I wondered what it would be like to walk away altogether, to simply move along. Over the last year, I have thought about this option a lot.

As disruptive as it may be to say out loud, there has been so much goodness on the other side of my honest consideration of walking away from Christianity. One of the main sources of my panic and anxiety has always been the feeling of being trapped or stuck. Airplanes, driving on the interstate, difficult relationships; I need an escape plan to feel safe. As I have healed in other areas of my life, I have realized that the security and clear guidelines that the strict religious system of my younger years offered to me are no longer necessary. As I grow up in my faith, I am more okay with mystery, with having a lot more questions than answers. I can choose to keep participating in this way of understanding so many things that we can never actually understand. No matter what any person tells you who ascribes to any belief system, no one knows for sure if the light that they are following is the correct one. A life of faith has been and always will be exactly that.

And now, Marge is retiring. I have cried every Sunday for the past few weeks. I have wondered what will happen next at our tiny church. I have dreaded the future. But I have also seen the goodness of God in the land of the living and I have seen the star in the East and I have been and will keep walking toward it. I am so grateful for the saints who have walked alongside and before me and for those who will come after me. I am grateful for Marge and her faithfulness to the calling that was given to her as a child. Last week, as she administered communion to me, she said to me the words I have heard her say to my daughter each Sunday. I know that she knew that the girl inside of me needed the words. “This is Jesus bread. Every time you have it, Jesus says, ‘I love you.’” In Marge’s lovingkindness, in her mothering presence, in her faithful following of Christ, I have heard Jesus say he loves me and sometimes I have dared to believe it.